Question: Is harvard hard to get in to and did you get a scoloship and what does it cost if you to get into harvard ?

Laura Maliszewski answered on 18 Jun 2010:

I went to Harvard for graduate school to get my PhD, so after I finished Uni.

It was kind of hard to get into, there were 50 applicants and 12 of us got in, 8 chose to study.

A lot of people don’t even bother applying to places like Harvard. If you want to go to a competitive school, you have to apply! If you don’t apply, you have zero chance of getting in.

I did get a scholarship called a Graduate Fellowship. The US government paid for my degree at Harvard. This is common in the US for graduate PhD studies in the sciences, especially if you go to a high-ranking school.

It only cost me a few hundred dollars in fees each year, my tuition, books and a stipend for living costs were all included in the fellowship. The total cost would probably have been over $50,000/year otherwise. PhD programs are competitive though, so if you get it, your studies are generally covered. You can’t just show up and pay to go to school and get a PhD in research science at Harvard and similar places.

I think the system in the UK is different, but similar. I think you apply for graduate fellowships from different places and the UK PhD doesn’t take quite as long.